Monday, November 3, 2008

I miss the internet

New job is REALLY tight on internet use, so I've not been doing any reading or writing on company time. And since I'm actually busy, I don't really mind, Until I realize that I miss all my online friends!

I'm surrounded by uber conservative people up here, so please forgive the following:

Reasons you should vote NO on Prop 8 if you live in California.

Prop 8 would make gay marriage illegal. I don't care how you try to justify it, denying a person something that you have the right to, is wrong. It's discriminatory and wrong.
The State supreme court ruled this same legal language "unconstitutional." Why would you vote for something that is unconstitutional?
Gay marriages will still exist, since those marriage licenses issued to gay couples since April 15 will still stand. So, you will still have to deal with the idea of gay people being married.

From someone who's in a marriage that was/is still illegal in some areas and up until the last few decades, let me tell you something: Love isn't wrong. It can't be wrong, so stop trying to force it into little boxes that make sense to you. Why would you want to deny anyone the bliss and agony of marriage? How do two people with similar genitalia being married hurt your relationship? It doesn't.
This is too important to let your own biases color your judgment .
If your religion is telling you that gay marriage is wrong, consider this: does your god make mistakes? No? Then gay people are just as good/bad/beautiful/ugly/right/wrong as YOU are.

Please. This is California. We're supposed to be the state that let's everyone do their own thing, even if it doesn't make sense to you, personally. We're supposed to be on the cutting edge of human rights. Let's stand up and say we demand a separation of church and state. Let's stop letting bigotry color our laws, and fight injustice and hatred everywhere we find it.

I know this is getting entirely too serious, but it IS serious. These are people's lives and rights we're talking about, and it needs to be said in every forum, in every language in every possible way.

Creating laws that treat people differently are wrong. Please, restore my faith in humanity's ability to see through the bullshit and do the right thing. Just this once.

But no matter how you feel about politics... remember to vote tomorrow. In 24 hours, we'll know who the next president is. How exciting is that?

5 comments:

meghan said...

I'm really glad to have seen your post on this. I've been wishing I lived in California just so I could vote NO. But at least I do live in a semi-swing state AND have the added bonus of living just 1.5 hours from Chicago where I will be attending the Obama Election Night event tomorrow!

jen breese said...

Amen. Oh wait.... um... hell I dunno but I hope California doesn't take two steps back in rights... I'm just glad it will all be over tomorrow or Wednesday morning.

You know the old saying... you gotta know the rules before you can break the rules.

Faith said...

I carpool with my somewhat religious neighbor on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and so we were talking about this after we were done voting this morning a I drove us to work. (I was sad that we don't have more exciting things to vote for, like you guys in CA do, so I brought it up.)

He feels that legalizing marriage for homosexual couples somehow challenges what mariage is supposed to be as a conventional institution. I want to respect his POV, of course, since we're not only neighbors and coworkers, but also because he's a nice guy and a human being, but I find it hard to understand how anyone can feel that allowing gay people to marry will somehow change what marriage means as a conventional institution. It's a relationship based on love and respect, just the same as mine is with my husband, and his is with his wife.

But he also disagrees with the idea that homosexuality isn't a choice. (He thinks people do have a choice, which is fucking ridiculous. He grew up in a small town in BFE Kansas, though, so that's the only "excuse" I can give for his opinion.) When I realized that he felt that way about it, I knew that there was no way for us to discuss it any further, really. We had a good discussion, though. Its nice to be able to discuss such differing points of view in such a rational manner.

I hope it doesn't get passed. Good luck CA!!!

faithstwin said...

I wrote a post about this very Prop a couple of weeks ago. I live in a rather conservative area of Ca (South Orange County) so we have had a LOT of demonstrations on street corners with the majority of them focusing on the YES opinion.

I am open and honest when it comes to admitting I am a conservative who voted NO on this abomination of a proposition.

I have taken the time to have some 'discussion' on the local paper's website with a good amount of people. EVERY time the paper opened up a pole re: how we were planning to vote it almost always ended up 40% vs 40% with 2% 'unsure'.

I really hope and pray this prop doesn't pass and if it does? I will be very upset and embarrassed.

April said...

I'm surprised and sad that it passed. I thought that the majority of California was liberal?

I'm so sorry that it passed. Hopefully there will be something that changes it soon.